This invention relates to information retrieval and display, and contemplates techniques for locating and loading information from resources such as the Internet and displaying the same for review and/or interaction. More specifically, the invention embraces methods for retrieving information, together with display apparatus adapted for that purpose and especially for use in the domestic or commercial environment. The invention extends to methods and apparatus for interacting with the retrieved and displayed information.
The advance of information technology has placed information on almost any topic at the disposal of every suitably-equipped computer user. The Internet especially is undergoing explosive growth, with the result that new web pages and Internet-based services are proliferating in every field.
Web pages can simply contain reference information but increasingly provide interactive facilities for the provision of information, entertainment and Internet-based services. For instance, many banks now offer customers the option of on-line home banking over the Internet. Large stores offer home delivery services, where a customer places an order for specific goods such as groceries over the Internet and the ordered goods are subsequently delivered to the customer""s home.
Whilst the expansion of the Internet has brought many benefits and has opened up some remarkable possibilities, it has also encountered the problem of information overload. There is now such a surfeit of information on many topics that irrelevant information obscures the information an Internet user needs to know. Filtering this information adds to what, for many actual and potential users, is the already undesirable complexity of Internet access.
For example, a query presented through an Internet search engine can lead to an overwhelming flood of irrelevant hits that discourages those seeking a quick answer to a simple question. Advanced search options can be used to stem the flood, but they involve input of further, carefully considered search parameters, and are still somewhat hit-and-miss. The user has no convenient way to ensure, as far as possible, that the information immediately displayed will be precisely relevant to his or her needs at that time. To be relevant, such information could be pertinent to the user""s locality and/or the time of day, such as a bus or train timetable from the local bus stop or train station. More generally, relevant information could be the subject of whatever issue the user happens to be dealing with at that time, say a bank statement received in that day""s mail, on which a query has arisen. Unfortunately, getting to such relevant information can be like finding a needle in a haystack. In particular, the global, borderless character of the Internet renders it ill-equipped readily to provide local information on demand.
Even if the URL of a desired web page is already known and has been bookmarked for easy repetitive access, much irrelevant information can be presented by that web page to the user. Means exist to personalize a web page to the user""s perceived needs by, for example, storing a cookie on the user""s PC that identifies the user and his or her browsing habits to the server hosting the web page. However, the user""s actual information needs can change from day to day or even from hour to hour and so will tend to outstrip any such personalization techniques.
As just one example, a user might visit a web site one day for advice on how to fill in a particularly complex form such as a tax return. A day or two later, the same user might visit that site again for advice on how to fill in another form such as an appendix to the first form. Clearly, it would be more of a hindrance than a help on that second visit if the browser infers from recent experience that the user only wants information relating to the first form. In practice, therefore, the user is presented with a full menu of options on each and every visit, through which the user has to navigate to get to the advice that he or she seeks.
Also, whilst Internet-enabled devices such as mobile telephones are threatening the hegemony of the PC in terms of Internet access, it is still the case for most users that Internet access requires access to a PC. Unless the PC is left on all the time and is connected to the Internet by a fast and expensive telecommunications link such as ISDN, Internet access requires the PC to be booted up, following which a dial-up connection to the user""s ISP has to be made and only then can the desired web page be searched for or entered. Even then, there could be layers of menus to be negotiated, possibly exacerbated by security measures, each involving download time in what has come to be known as the xe2x80x98world wide waitxe2x80x99. It is therefore quite common for several minutes to elapse before the PC is actually ready to help the user with his or her query. This delay further discourages the user from accessing the Internet resources from which he or she could benefit and, if the information requested is time-critical such as a bus or train timetable, can make the system too slow to be of practical use.
More fundarnentally, many potential Internet users do not have access to a PC within their domestic environment or are reluctant to use the Internet because of lack of familiarity with the use of computers. PCs are designed primarily as a functional tool for the workplace, and not for household use. They therefore impose the creation of an office environment in the home, and cannot properly handle challenging domestic environments such as the kitchen with its heat, humidity and dirt contamination. Indeed, a PC in the kitchen would generally be regarded as getting in the way, no matter how useful its functionality might be in downloading recipes and so on.
Accordingly, even in households where Internet users have access to a PC, the PC is rarely located in the most convenient domestic environment for use in performing routine domestic activities such as on-line shopping etc. PCs are often located in private spaces within the home, such as a home office or a bedroom, rather than in more public spaces. This environment of use influences who in the household has access to the computer; studies show that, on average, usage still remains male-dominated rather than a shared family activity.
In recent years, the diffusion of home computers has slowed throughout the western world. By way of illustration, on-line PC household penetration in the US has slowed down at around 40%, despite very healthy predictions for home on-line access and ever-failing PC prices. It appears that the PC xe2x80x98one size fits allxe2x80x99 approach to computing does not satisfy the requirements of most consumers, whose lifestyle needs may be better met by alternatives offering ease of use that PCs fail to provide. There is therefore a need to satisfy the home computing needs of the many consumers who do not personally perceive the need for a home PC, or who are dissuaded by its complexity, inconvenience and cost. This need extends to the commercial environment, such in as offices and stores.
The Applicant""s studies with discussion groups in the area of so-called relationship technologies have led to many interesting findings. Whilst most participants in such studies have experience of using computers at work, the studies noted a general feeling of uneasiness towards technology. The PC is often seen as being too complicated for most of the computing tasks that users want to perform at home or at work. Even for routine household tasks, the PC is seen as being cumbersome, slow to boot and in the xe2x80x98wrongxe2x80x99 room within the home, a room that is not used frequently. Also, there appears to be a lack of trust in PCs and their reliability. Most participants felt that technology would let them down since, from their experience of PCs at work, computers often xe2x80x98crashedxe2x80x99 or simply did not work properly.
Accordingly, easier to use computing devices have been proposed to drive the next generation of computing within the home and indeed elsewhere. The abovementioned Internet-enabled devices such as mobile telephones aim to simplify Internet access by providing a simple alternative to a PC but still suffer from problems. For example, Internet access is just one of several functions that such devices offer and so a succession of control inputs are necessary to select and to effect Internet access from among the various functions. Of course, once connected to the Internet, the potential problem of information overload remains, no matter how simple and intuitive the operation of the browser apparatus itself might be.
Of course, it helps if the browser software and the device that runs it is indeed simple and intuitive to use. However, for the reasons set out above, neither PCs nor any other known Internet-enabled devices fully meet those requirements. Many laborious steps can lie between reading, say, a URL in a manufacturer""s product brochure and successfully obtaining relevant information from the web site thus identified. Transcription errors often occur, or the URL could have changed since the brochure was printed.
Even when the right information has been accessed, the layout of a typical PC or other Internet-enabled device does not lend itself to the most efficient use of that information. It is difficult to share displayed information among two or more users unless they sit beside each other in front of the monitor or other display. Indeed, where two persons sit opposite each other around a desk with a PC monitor on it, as is more typical in a commercial environment such as at an adviser""s desk in a bank or a store, the monitor serves to divide rather than to unify. It is similarly difficult for more than one user to interact with the displayed information.
Against this background and in accordance with this invention, the Inventors have had the insight that the address of an information resource, notably a web address, can be coded onto a machine-readable tag associated with an item to which that information resource relates. The tag can be read automatically to identify and then access the information resource, thereby to extract and display truly relevant information but without putting the user to the trouble of searching for the information resource. For example, as soon as a coded web address is read from a tag by a suitable reader connected to a serial port of a PC or otherwise associated with a browsing apparatus, a browser can be launched to load and display a web page containing information relevant to the item associated with the tag. An application address optionally stored on the tag with the web address may be used to launch the browser application if desired.
The item might represent a product or service, being a product itself or its packaging, a ticket or a receipt, or other general merchandising material such as a brochure, an information sheet or an advertising leaflet. More generally, the item can be printed material of any type, such as a form.
The invention therefore provides a link between items representing products or services, and their related web content. For example, a URL coded on a product or its packaging can access a customer support web site for that product, at which assembly or set-up instructions are available and warranty registration details can be provided. A URL coded on printed material such as a form can access a web adviser that explains how to fill in that form. URLs coded on receipts and tickets can show service details, such as store opening times, timetables, event details or indeed any other information relating to the issuer of the receipt or ticket or the subject or contents of that receipt or ticket.
Whilst the invention provides great benefit in the Internet environment, it is not essential that the information resource is an Internet resource: information could be held on an intranet, an extranet or in a database of any description.
In devising the physical form of the apparatus used to read a tag, launch a browser and display the information thus extracted, the Inventors have considered the abovementioned drawbacks of the PC and its more recent Internet-enabled competitors. The Inventors have concluded that the apparatus of the invention, at least the tag-reading part and preferably the entire apparatus including display and input means, can best be embodied in the form of a multi-purpose item of furniture. That way, the apparatus becomes an integrated part of the living or working environment, and has its normal furniture use in addition to its information-retrieving functionality. Consequently, the apparatus is never perceived as being in the way, and becomes an accepted and indeed indispensable part of daily life.
Most preferably, the item of furniture is a table, which term will be taken, for the purposes of this specification, to encompass other functionally-similar items of furniture such as counters and desks. Tables as defined herein are characterized by a support surface of some kind, which surface is usually generally horizontal. This presents the elegant and highly advantageous possibility of reading the tag on an item when that item is simply placed upon the support surface of the table. This is a remarkably natural, intuitive and convenient way of operating the reader to launch a browser and thereby load the web page appropriate to the item placed on the table.
More preferably still, not only is the item itself displayed on the table when launching the browser, but the retrieved information relevant to that item is also displayed on the table. In the currently preferred embodiment that will be described later, an internal projector projects the display image up onto the underside of the support surface, to be viewed by a user looking down from above and beside the support surface
Interaction with the displayed information is another preferred part of the invention. A touch screen overlay on the support surface is currently envisaged, enabling icons or a virtual keypad to be pressed as necessary to interact with the display.
The inventive concept can therefore be expressed in various ways. From one aspect, the invention resides in an item for which a related displayable information resource exists, the item having a machine-readable tag onto which the address of the information resource is coded for access to the information resource upon machine-reading the address. This aspect of the invention also embraces a coded machine-readable tag for attachment to or incorporation into an item relating to a displayable information resource whose address is coded onto the tag, and a method of coding such a tag comprising coding an address of a displayable information resource onto the tag.
The invention extends to apparatus for accessing a displayable information resource, the apparatus comprising a tag reader, a decoder for identifying a coded information resource address carried by the tag, and access means for accessing the identified information resource. The apparatus preferably further comprises display means for displaying information loaded from the accessed information resource, the display means advantageously being associated with control input means such as a touch screen overlay.
Whilst any or all of the above components of the apparatus could be distributed around a plurality of interconnected units, it is much preferred that all of those components are integrated in a single appliance that, more preferably, is embodied in an item of furniture such as a table. In any event, the tag reader is preferably operable to read a tag when the item is placed onto a support surface of the apparatus. The tag reader may be a reader/writer to allow data to be written to the tag.
The invention also embraces the related method of accessing a displayable information resource that relates to an item, comprising reading a tag carried by the item, identifying an information resource address carried by the tag, and accessing the identified information resource. The method will generally further comprise displaying information relating to the item loaded from the accessed information resource, although the nature of that display is not essential within the broad inventive concept. In method terms, the operation of reading the tag preferably takes place upon placing the item onto a support surface, and the further operations of the method follow on automatically from that initial operation so that those further operations, too, are ultimately triggered by placing the item onto the support surface. An element of manual control is, of course, possible if desired, such as manually enabling any of the operations of the method.
The invention can also be expressed in terms of a method of tailoring retrieved information to a user""s requirements, comprising the user gathering items that relate to the user""s potential information needs, each item having a machine-readable tag onto which the address of a displayable information resource is coded, and accessing the information resource by machine-reading the address on the tag.
In the invention, a tag is seen as a discrete component that can be applied to or incorporated into an item, the tag thus having a distinct character from the item to which it is applied. For example, a tag code programmed into a memory storage device such as a CD-ROM would not be regarded as having a distinct character from that item, although like any product, a physical tag could be applied to such an item to obtain the benefits of the invention.
In its broadest sense, the invention contemplates a wide range of machine-readable, encoded tags that can be applied to or incorporated into an item. It would be possible, for example, to employ bar code technology. There is no cheaper machine-readable tag. However, bar codes suffer problems in integrity of read operations due to optical difficulties, particularly the need for line-of-sight presentation within a limited range of orientations with respect to the reader. More generally, bar code systems are prone to dirt build-up, ink bleeding, stray marks, dropouts and warping or tearing of the label or other substrate to which the bar code is applied. Bar coded information cannot be erased, rewritten or appended unless one replaces the bar code entirely, and bar codes can so easily be copied as to present no real barrier to counterfeit use or a security breach.
For these reasons, the Inventors envisage particular advantages for silicon-based ID tag technology, specifically RF tags (RFID) that solve or at least mitigate all of the above problems of bar codes. In RFID applications, a reader (which can be a reader/writer) generates an excitation field that serves as both the tag""s source of power and its master clock. Thus activated when in range of the reader, the tag cyclically modulates its data contents and transmits them to a receiver circuit within the reader. The reader demodulates and decodes the data signal and provides a formatted data packet for further processing by a host computer.
Wireless programming is a particularly advantageous option offered by RFID read/write systems. It enables the memory in a tag to be configured, updated, erased, rewritten or appended by a suitable RF reader/writer at any time in the life of the tag or of the item with which the tag is associated. So, a tag can be programmed just before the associated item is given to the user, thus ensuring that the information it contains is up to date and appropriate to the user""s needs at that time.
Whilst cross-platform RFID standards have not yet been developed, the Inventors especially favor RFID tags that embody the BiStatix technology announced by Motorola, Inc. in March 1999 through its subsidiary, Indala Corporation. The names BiStatix, Motorola and Indala are all acknowledged as trade marks.
Full particulars of BiStatix technology are available at Indala""s web site whose home page is currently at http://129.188.106.11/LMPS/Indala/index.html. Briefly, BiStatix works on a capacitive coupling principle as opposed to the inductive principle of normal RFID systems. A BiStatix tag simply comprises a small, thin silicon chip, less than 3 mm2 in surface area and less than 250 microns thick, attached to printed electrodes of, for example, carbon ink that serve as antennae for wireless communication between the chip and a suitable reader.
The chip and the electrodes are disposed on a substrate that can be flexible, for example on the reverse of a paper label whose opposite, exposed face can bear human-readable information, preferably in natural language, and possibly also bar-coded information for compatibility with an existing tag system. In this form, the BiStatix tag is flat and very thin, almost undetectably so. It is easy and cheap to make, and simple to apply to an item or to integrate with an existing item. This applies especially to an existing printed item like a form, ticket, token or information sheet because the BiStatix printing technique can simply be integrated with the existing printing process. The tag is tolerant of flexing, creasing and folding and is generally robust, even if the electrodes are torn or otherwise damaged: so long as an effective remnant of the electrodes remains attached to the silicon chip and the chip itself remains intact, the tag will remain functional.
Of course, it is also possible to apply the components of a BiStatix tag to a relatively stiff substrate such as a laminated ID card.
Whilst it is accepted that no silicon-based technology can compare strictly cost-wise with a bar code, a BiStatix tag comes close enough to a bar code in terms of cost that its technical benefits outweigh the additional cost while allowing use of the tags in high-volume, disposable applications. The BiStatix tag may therefore be considered as a next-generation bar code. Importantly for the purposes of the invention, BiStatix technology promises to provide sufficient memory capacity to store most if not all typical URLs. Present BiStatix tags are programmable with up to 120 ASCII characters, and greater capacity can be expected in future developments.
Accordingly, in conceptual terms, it is preferred that the tag technology used in the invention is RF and more preferably involves the use of a printed tag such as is proposed by Motorola/Indala under the trade mark BiStatix.
Further aspects of the invention relate to user interface techniques that are powerful and yet simple and intuitive. One such aspect can be expressed as an interface method for use in accessing a displayable information resource, the method comprising displaying to a user a map showing the environs of a physical base location that the user lives in, works in or visits frequently during day-to-day life, and placing on that map interactive virtual objects representing facilities with which the user can interact when in and around that base location. This aspect may also be expressed as apparatus for accessing a displayable information resource, the apparatus having a user interface comprising a display and control input means associated with the display and further including means for generating and displaying a map showing the environs of a physical base location that the user lives in, works in or visits frequently during day-to-day life, and interactive virtual objects placed on that map to represent facilities with which the user can interact when in and around that base location.
The virtual objects are suitably located on the map at positions corresponding to facilities in and around the base location represented by the map, and preferably represent facilities with which the user has a history of interaction. Specifically, the selection of virtual objects can be tailored by the user""s history of interaction with the facilities represented by those virtual objects. This can be achieved as aforesaid by the user gathering items that relate to the facilities with which the user has interacted, each item having a machine-readable tag that contains information relating to the respective facility, or an address of a resource for such information.
A virtual object can be created on first reading a tagged item that relates to a facility, and that virtual object can be stored and displayed again on reading another tagged item that relates to the same facility.
Preferred embodiments of the map contain a first virtual object representing the user""s home, workplace or other base location. It is possible simultaneously to display on the map a second virtual object representing a facility with which the user can interact and showing the relative position of that facility with respect to the base location. When the second virtual object appears in the display, the display of the map advantageously zooms out from the first virtual object to encompass the second virtual object in the same display.
The user can interact with the displayed virtual object by touching or clicking on a part of the object, and moreover can control the interaction by touching or clicking on different parts of the displayed virtual object. To facilitate this, the method of the invention preferably comprises zooming in on a selected displayed virtual object.
A window or menu can be superimposed on the map display, and the virtual objects can be superimposed on a virtual streetscape.
The apparatus of the invention suitably includes means for creating and/or displaying an appropriate virtual object upon reading a tagged item, using various tag-reading facilities as aforesaid.
A further interface method for use in accessing a displayable information resource that relates to an item comprises machine-reading a tag carried by the item and in response to the data carried by the tag, displaying an interactive virtual image of the item for interaction by a user to access the information resource. The method may, for example, comprise identifying an information resource address carried by the tag, and accessing the identified information resource to download the interactive virtual image of the item.
This method can be performed using apparatus having a user interface comprising a display and control input means associated with the display and further including a tag reader for reading a tag associated with an item and means responsive to the tag reader for generating and displaying an interactive virtual image of the item for interaction by a user to access the information resource.
In an elegant arrangement, indicia displayed on the virtual image of the item constitutes a menu of links to related information resources, and the indicia on the virtual image preferably corresponds to indicia upon the item. The indicia can comprise words, phrases, icons or graphical matter applied to the virtual image; where the indicia includes a word, that word preferably links to an information resource relating to the meaning of that word.
As before, the user suitably interacts with the virtual image by touching or clicking on a screen that displays the image. Where indicia on the virtual image links to particular information resources, the user accesses those information resources by touching or clicking on a part of the screen corresponding to the related indicia.
This aspect of the invention can also be expressed within the inventive concept as a method of advertising or marketing, comprising providing a tagged item that is a physical symbol of a supplier, machine-reading a tag carried by the item and in response to the data carried by the tag, displaying an interactive virtual image of the item for interaction by a user to access an information resource relating to the item or the supplier. The tagged item is preferably a product of the supplier.